Most of ANSI’s peer national standards bodies in other nations are government agencies which are supported by taxpayers.

The U.S. standards system is not supported directly by taxpayers as it is in other nations. Our system is inspired by ideas bubbling up from the workpoint from non-government, or private sectors like our own. In most other countries, the opposite is true – standards activities are initiated from the top-down — i.e by the national government. The difference between our system and others presents difficulties in balancing the market of materially affected stakeholders because of costs associated with financing the professional time and expertise of subject matter experts who are effective in standards development spaces. While discussion continues about how well the US non-government sector is doing to advance national technology strategy continues (see January 17, 2012 White House Memo M-12-08 and the recent revisions to OMB-119) the US standards system remains the most effective process for advancing national technology priorities for the education and university-affiliated health care industry. Because most of our industry is spending public money both business and academic units should be engaged with ANSI in contributing to the success of the NTTAA legislation.

The NTTAA also seeks to make innovation profitable — especially by inventive people and organizations that apply the results of federal research. The US Patent and Trademark Office was one of the original administrative offices recognized in Section 8, Clause 8, of the US Constitution “…to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writing and discoveries”

We have explained the reciprocal relationship between standardization and innovation in previous publications and have given many concrete examples in this website about how we have put ANSI processes to work. We have had the process explained to our industry personally by the President and CEO of ANSI at the Ross School of Business in October 2014. In a sense, ANSI ensures a “liquidity of ideas” in technological spaces similar to the way the FOREX exchange provides a balanced, open and transparent process for all materially affected stakeholders in the financial markets.

In the processes that govern infrastructure markets it is relatively easy for manufacturer, insurance, and labor interests to be “in the market” — they simply build the cost of retaining intellectual property (i.e. subject matter experts, lobbyists, thought leaders, etc.) into the price we pay for their product or service. The same is true for the Building Inspector, Fire Marshall or other Compliance Officer. These interests bring “life” to consensus by putting them in service of public safety. The public safety budget is always included in the cost of running a unit of government.

It has proven much more difficult for the user-owner to participate in technical standards markets despite the need to continually rehabilitate our industry’s physical infrastructure. Some of the 235+ ANSI accredited standards developers have reported difficulty getting the “user interest” to participate at a proportional scale as all the other interests. The result for the stakeholder not at the table — the $300 billion education and health care facilities industry — is inefficient price discovery and less-than-optimal resource allocation. The good news is that the University of Michigan’s advocacy for the public sector user-owner interest has been delivering tangible results since 2007. Its business model needs only to be scaled upward to meet the challenges of streaming regulation that could not have been imagined in the original NTTAA legislation.

A review of education facility industry consensus and open source standards that set the standard of care for premises security, emergency management and active shooter events. We are active in about 10 standards, or parts of standards. We will likely be marking up redlines open for public review or setting up breakout sessions to “get down in the weeds” if necessary. It is usually necessary.

Status check on standards action that guide laboratory safety and sustainability in all building disciplines. There are about ten standards developers in this space and they do not all move in a coordinated manner among themselves; much less from state-to-state. Anyone is welcomed to join this teleconference with the login information below. For an agenda, please join our mailing list.

Examine public input for the 2020 National Electrical Code that is relevant to the education facilities industry and prepare public comment. The second of three breakout teleconferences ahead of the August 30th deadline.

BSR/NSF 14-201x (i97r3), Plastics Piping System Components and Related Materials (revision of ANSI/NSF 14-2017). This Standard establishes minimum physical, performance, and health effects requirements for plastic piping system components and related materials. These criteria were established for the protection of public health and the environment. Click here to view these changes in full: ANSI Standards Action | PDF Pages 32-33

Status check on the rapidly expanding constellation of consensus and open source standards that will guide safety and sustainability regulations for the emergent #SmartCampus. Of the 250-odd ANSI accredited standards developers we count about 50 of them active in capturing some aspect of the Internet of Things transformation. There are even more open source standards developers in this space. As is our custom, we will focus on public commenting opportunities that consensus and open source standards developers; scheduling breakout work sessions with user-interest subject matter experts as necessary.

Review and interactive discussion of codes and standards appearing in several hundred design, construction, operation & maintenance documents distributed to suppliers to the education facility industry. This is a chance for design and engineering staffs to learn about what other institutions are doing with respect to establishing accepted good practice, conforming to safety and sustainability regulations, and what local adaptations and modifications these institutions are making to national and international standards.

Examine public input for the 2020 National Electrical Code that is relevant to the education facilities industry and prepare public comment. The last of three breakout teleconferences ahead of the August 30th deadline.